Revenge of the Nerds: How Barbie Got Her Geek On

Serious career aspirations aren't the first thing most people associate with Barbie, the impossibly thin, high-heel-loving fashion doll.

Still, Barbie's maker, Mattel Inc., thought it would be interesting to ask young girls who visited the Barbie.com Web site to vote on what the doll's next career should be. Mattel gave them a choice of architect, anchorwoman, computer engineer, environmentalist and surgeon. All told, more than 600,000 votes were cast during a four-week period this past winter.

Career Girl

Computer engineer and News anchor Barbies, the newest in the "I Can Be..." line. Mattel

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Girls the world over overwhelmingly cast their ballot for anchorwoman Barbie—"not a surprise, as girls see Katie Couric and a lot of other female anchors," says Stephanie Cota, senior vice president of marketing for the Barbie brand.

But what happened next, she says, "blew us away."

The voting was open to anyone, and nobody could vote more than once. But by the end of the first week, a growing flood of adult votes for computer engineer Barbie trumped the popular choice. Female computer engineers who learned about the election launched a viral campaign on the Internet to get out the vote and ensure Barbie would join their ranks.

"Please help us in getting Barbie to get her Geek on!" came the appeal from the blog GeekGirlCamp.com.

As Mattel puts it: Computer engineer Barbie "won the popular vote" and anchorwoman won the girls' vote.

Barbie landed her first gig as a teenage fashion model in 1959. Since then she's been an astronaut, a surgeon and a presidential candidate. Her latest career choice? Computer engineer.

The result is a ponytailed doll in black leggings and a top decorated in binary code that spells Barbie, and lots of pink accessories—geek-chic glasses, Bluetooth headset and shoes.

Why grown women felt so strongly about having themselves represented by a doll—especially one that feminists have always loathed—speaks volumes both about the power of the iconic Barbie doll and the current state of women who work in computer and information sciences. Their ranks have declined in the past two decades. In 2008, women received only 18% of computer science degrees, down from 37% in 1985, according to the National Center for Women & Information Technology.

Barbie was designed to be a teenager and was an instant sensation when she was created in 1959, tapping into children's desire to emulate older girls. She remains the No.1-selling doll in the world, with annual sales of the doll and related merchandise of more than $1.3 billion.

In Mattel's "I Can Be…" line of Barbie dolls, the first career was teenage fashion model. But Barbie went on to have 124 other professions, frequently mirroring or even anticipating societal change. She was an astronaut in 1965, four years before a man walked on the moon and more than a decade before Sally Ride became the first American woman in space.

ENLARGE

Mattel got into hot water in the early 1990s when it unveiled a talking Barbie doll that uttered the line, "Math class is tough." After the American Association of University Women attacked the math comment in a report on how schools shortchange girls, Mattel promptly apologized and deleted the phrase.

Regardless, Barbie remains enduringly popular among young girls. In 2000, Marie Wilson, president and founder of the White House Project, a nonprofit group that seeks to increase women's leadership roles, teamed up with Mattel to create a President Barbie, much to the consternation of many of her colleagues. Ms. Wilson admits she had reservations about using Barbie, because of "her body shape" and the design of her feet, which allows her to wear only towering high heels.

"But if you really want to change things, you have to go where the people are—the little people," she argues.

On Jan. 7, Mattel launched a month-long voting campaign for Barbie's next career on Barbie.com, Barbie's Twitter and Facebook pages, plus a bus and billboard campaign in New York.

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After several popular technology Web sites wrote about the election, female computer engineers began encouraging colleagues to cast their ballot. During January, a total of 1,840 tweets discussed it.

Alice Merner Agogino, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, got several emails urging her to vote from members of different organizations that encourage girls to enter the field.

After learning about the election from the National Academy of Engineers, Erin Fitzgerald, a science and technology fellow in the U.S. Department of Defense, helped get out the vote. "There is a perception that an interest in math, science and computers means being socially awkward and boring and sacrificing the opportunity to be creative and fun," she says. The Society of Women Engineers, based in Chicago, alerted its 20,000 members in a weekly email newsletter. Nora Lin, its president, said she hoped the doll would inspire girls to become engineers.

By the end of January, computer Barbie was clearly the frontrunner and Mattel began soliciting input on her design from groups of computer scientists. " 'Make us look cool and hip.' 'Don't put us in lab coats.' 'Don't make us look like nerds,' " says Nathan Kahl, a spokesman for the National Academy of Engineering, recounting the comments from women members that he submitted to Mattel.

Mattel announced the winner and displayed a prototype of computer engineer Barbie at the International Toy Fair in New York Feb. 11.

Veronica Belmont, a San Francisco resident who has an online-technology video show and who says she snubbed Barbie as a girl in favor of toys she could take apart and reassemble, thought Barbie's sparkly leggings and pink accessories "were over the top."

"I found the pink condescending," Ms. Belmont says, "but if it will get little girls' attention and get them to play with computers, it's a good start."

Computer engineer Barbie will hit stores in the fall. So, will an anchorwoman Barbie. Mattel thought that was only fair.

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